Wives Who Make More Money, a Recipe for a Failed Marriage?

By
Meyers Law Group, P.C.
|May 21, 2013

As most very well know, woman rights are booming in our country, and particularly their presence in the workplaces we are seeing more and more woman earning their way to the top of the totem pole. Woman are rising to the top in regards to their presence in politics, businesses, medicine, and the like; as they account for over half of the bachelor's degrees in the United States.

However, studies are showing that as woman continues to rise to the top, marriages just may be suffering as a response. These studies show that for the woman who earns a higher wage than her partner, it may come at a great cost—the relationship itself.

Evidence shows that relationships may be greatly affected by this increase in earnings for woman, and a man and woman are much less likely to marry if the female earns a greater wage than the male partner. If the two do eventually marry, evidence suggests that they are more susceptible to experiencing an unhappy partnership because of the pressures placed on the wife to not invest as much time into her work (particularly for those demanding jobs).

One group of marriage annalists came to the conclusion that marriages are successful when a wife out-earns her husband based on four facts they proved to be true by their research. They claim that these marriages would first be rare, that it would result in less joy, the wives would be expects to spend less time in the office, and it would create higher divorce rates. Since these have all been seen as true, research shows that for some reason, a large majority of marriages tend to be unsuccessful if the male earns less than the wife.

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